NORTH

by Peter I. Horton

It's early June and millions of people are moving north to escape the deadly heat of summer. When thirteen-year-old Jemma and her sister Hanna are left behind, they must find their own way north, across the scorched and dangerous landscape of an altered Earth. Years earlier their mother struggles to find a job and feed her daughters, as the environment and the economy deteriorate and she is pushed towards desperate measures. Within these timelines is a story of fierce love, shocking cruelty, unexpected compassion and a fight for survival that reveals humanity at its most raw.

228 pages, Paperback

Published July 24, 2024

About the author

Peter I. Horton is a writer living in Toronto, Canada. After years working in the highly collaborative TV and film industry, he decided to write something that is purely his own. This is his first novel.

Reviews

[Heidi Palleske · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once and a while a book comes along that transcends genre. Such is the case with Peter Horton's debut novel, NORTH. I was fortunate to have read the book both before and after publication and each read offered new perspectives. It is a book that grabs you by the throat and does not let you go. A page-turner, written with precision and attention to detail. Part a relationship book, part a dystopian tale, Horton's novel can best be described as a perfect BILDUNGSROMAN, where courage sits alongside vulnerabilty, trust alongside betrayal, and despair alongside hope. In this time of global warming, financial inequities, and struggle for gender equality, NORTH is the perfect novel to read. It sheds a light upon our concerns while providing the hope of humanity.

[Philip Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

North is an adolescent’s survival tale for adults. A novel of substance, suspense, character and humanity. It is an urgent cautionary tale forged into a kind of post apocalyptic Dickensian sensibility.

We may think of Global warming in terms of catastrophic weather. Horton has the reader experience climate change in the insidious disintegration of America’s middle class; its twilight’s last gleaming one might say.

Horton portrays the harrowing fight for survival of the 13-year-old heroine, Jemma and her sister, Hanna, with shocking effectiveness as they move through an abandoned and dangerous landscape. In this respect, the read is unrelenting – everything fails with horrifying inevitability– declining shelter, declining food, declining possibilities of existence. Horton’s use of granular detail, seen through Jemma’s eyes, is much more effective than big dramatic picture telling

A thing that stuck me profoundly is not how Horton’s wasteland creates damaged bad-guys - that’s to be expected - but rather the disabling of people who want to help, who try to do the right thing, but are without the means to actually do so. That echo will shake some readers to the core.

The main relief we experience is a growing admiration of Jemma’s growing mental arsenal of survival talents. We are inexorably drawn in and committed to completing the journey with her. To his great credit Horton skillfully and determinedly avoids the many opportunities to indulge in the cloying over-sentimentality many writers would have easily caved to. Thanks for that.

Strangely throughout this almost unrelentingly bleak work, and given the comedable lack of redemptive artifice by the author, we are not left hopeless. A strange optimism -a luminous ,if not defined specter of hope envelopes us.

Comparables to my mind are the classic 1984 post apocalyptic film Threads and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

[David Hoselton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a great read!

North tells the story of thirteen-year-old Jenna’s arduous journey with her older sister Hanna to the titular location, in order to escape the deadly seasonal heat – a tragic reality in this near-future world. Technically, that makes this science fiction, but this is not an unrecognizable, high-tech setting. Rather, the author has effortlessly crafted a place that feels so realistic and which now, more than ever, verges on an inevitability that makes its understated horror even more terrifying. But it’s the characters that are the heart of this book and they are drawn with a deceptive simplicity that immediately pulls you into their stories.

This book will break your heart and uplift your spirit. Highly recommended.

[Susanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished Peter Horton's "North" which I read almost in one stretch - it was that compelling. What a great debut novel! You are immediately invested in the story - which, it must be said, is very dark yet never without hope. We follow two sisters' journey, emotionally and physically, as they struggle through a very troubling and dangerous journey that they must undertake. More cannot be divulged here! Horton never spells out just what has gone wrong but hints at total societal break down, possibly brought on by extreme climate change. The country, the year, the "why" are all left vague and for the reader to imagine. Since North ends somewhat on a cliffhanger, I hope there will be a follow up - I need answers!

[Victoria Hetherington · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for lovers of dystopian fiction and cli-fi with a very distinctly Canadian pedigree. Spun through spare prose as clear as a Northern lake, this is a thrilling, cinematic work that tells a truly devastating story of a series of familiar heartbreaks, in particular the sisterly relationship of Jemma and Hanna and their fierce struggle for survival. Extremely well-observed, the book comes almost unbearably alive on the page, and will linger with you a long time after you've finished reading.

[Dick Lowry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommend it.